From her early teenage days, one of the newest residents on Dragons’ Den knew she was passionate about sales. “My parents used to own retail liquor stores, and I used to work there,” says Manjit Minhas, Co-Owner and CEO of Minhas Breweries and Distillery. “I really loved sales and the idea of why people buy what they do, why they buy one brand over the other.”

Her passion for beer, on the other hand, came in university when she was studying engineering. Beyond tasting the difference in styles, this 2006 Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top Award Winner was especially interested in the science behind the brew. “I found it very fascinating,” she says. “The basic differences of what temperature you boil your brew at, how fast you cool it, how fast it ages or whether you filter it—all those kinds of things really come down to science.”

At 19, Manjit joined forces with her younger brother, Ravinder, and started Mountain Crest Liquors, which brought high-quality premium liquors (rum, rye, gin, blended scotch, vodka and—their big break—tequila) to market for a discounted price in Alberta. To get it all started, Manjit sold her car and put the funds toward co-founding the business. “When you’re young, you can put it all on the table. I didn’t have many other responsibilities then,” she remembers. “But I also felt there was nothing else out there I could feel as passionate about, that [would give me] control over the sales portion. It was about having that combination of loving what I was selling. The way to do that, I discovered, was to make my own.”

While on stage at the WXN Breakfast Series event on “Corporate Creativity” this past July (along with Dr. Lucy Miller, President and CEO, United Way of Calgary and Area), Manjit reflected on the passions that started her career path, in order to give advice for other professionals in the audience. In our interview afterward, Manjit connected the dots that led to her success.

While her formal education wasn’t directly linked to her business in those early days, she still sees immense value in it. “[Education] gives you the tools for life-long learning. In order to grow as a person and grow in your career, or grow your business, you have to be a life-long learner,” she says, referencing the confidence she gained just in knowing how to learn—something that helped her as she expanded her scope of business ventures later on.

Though passion gave her the vision, there were still challenges. “Using your time efficiently is one of the hardest things that entrepreneurs face,” she says. “[It’s about] finding the time to know what and where to spend your energy, as far as the sales and the product efforts go.

The other big challenge was handling money. “To this day we’ve never had any loans, investors or other shareholders,” Manjit says. This meant always watching costs with precision just to keep afloat.

After trial and error, Manjit and Ravinder discovered which aspects of their business they enjoyed and excelled at, dividing the labour accordingly. But their specific roles were never traditional. For the Minhas team, jobs were tackled based on personality, rather than gender. She handles all finance and marketing, while Ravinder takes on HR and Government Relations. Sales is something they’re happy to share.

And there is plenty of work to share. Under their brand, they own two breweries, a distillery, a TV and production company, a construction company, a design and print shop, a glass manufacturer and more—all parts that contribute to the design, production and delivery of their main product but also run projects independent from the liquor business. “They’re all different businesses, but same in terms of the thought that goes into getting a business plan, having a vision, executing, coming up with the ideas, talking to the right people, having a pricing strategy and keeping our heads low,” she says. “Business is business whether it be making widgets or making beer.”

Add to that long list the most recent of her undertakings: Dragons’ Den. Along with fellow Top 100 Award Winner Michele Romanow, Manjit now claims one of the Dragon thrones for the tenth season of the show, which premieres October 7 on CBC. “I hope to teach Canadians about some entrepreneurship and about some business lessons—and in the meantime, make good TV and have some fun.”

She’s first young mom to ever be on the show (she has two girls), so Manjit gets asked about balance quite a bit. “There is none,” she replies. “I try to keep as super-organized as I can, but I don’t feel guilty about what I do or I don’t do.”

When those moments do arise of feeling unbalanced or lacking motivation to keep going, Manjit’s best advice is to take a step back. “I’ll cancel an afternoon and, in my case, have a beer and actually enjoy what I started,” she says. “I look back and reprocess everything that’s happened and where we’re at, why I’m in it.”

Work-life balance, she says, is measured over a lifetime, not in the day-to-day. Just remember to love what you sell—be it service, widget, or maybe even beer.

This story was provided by WXN for commercial purposes. Postmedia had no involvement in the creation of this content.

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